


luctor et emergo

by foxgloved



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Family, Gen, Jedi Training, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Polyamory, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Rey Skywalker, Skywalker Family Feels, Trans Male Character, mostly canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-20 23:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6028927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxgloved/pseuds/foxgloved
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Family.</p>
<p>  <i>It is a foreign concept to Rey, something she has never known. She has visions, sometimes, in her sleep; of soothing hands on her shoulders, blue eyes sobered with regret looking at her, whispered apologies. She dreams of someplace warm and beautiful, where nothing hurts, and there is no sand in sight-- it is not the dreary wastelands of Jakku, that much she can tell, but otherwise it is a far-off place that only exists in her subconscious mind.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	luctor et emergo

**Author's Note:**

> title means 'i struggle and emerge' in latin; Listen ive written 4k+ of this fic today (in the past like 2 hours specifically) and it means a lot to me
> 
> more character studies will follow, possibly a sequel to this specific one!! there are minor tws for vague mention of menstruation & an eating disorder/malnutrition, violence as with canon, an anxiety attack in one of the snippets and brief unintentional misgendering/cissexism

**i.**   


_Family_.

It is a foreign concept to Rey, something she has never known. She has visions, sometimes, in her sleep; of soothing hands on her shoulders, blue eyes sobered with regret looking at her, whispered apologies. She dreams of someplace warm and beautiful, where nothing hurts, and there is no sand in sight-- it is not the dreary wastelands of Jakku, that much she can tell, but otherwise it is a far-off place that only exists in her subconscious mind.

She grows up alone there, on Jakku. No family to speak of-- no one to come home to. No home, in the first place. She remembers nothing of who she'd been born to. She remembers the burn of a weapon, red gleaming in her gaze, a masked stranger and hands, dragging her small body away-- a soft press of lips against her forehead.

But this is all Rey knows. The specifics are lost in her mind, somewhere buried deep in the haze of her childhood, and she has no memory of lilting feminine voices; only hard eyes, boring into her with despair but something else, too, something Rey's never seen before-- something she doesn't know, something she longs for despite not knowing what it is--

And this is what she dwells on, looking over the spirals of red and orange and yellow, through the dust in the air and the blue stretch of the sky. She knows she will never leave Jakku-- she's already been here for years, so long even she doesn't know how much time has passed. It hurts, maybe, knowing that no one is coming for her. That she'll forever be here, surrounded by the desert wastes and the quiet of the wind, trading whatever she can find (or what little she already has) for a meal.

As a child she'd cried herself to sleep, body rocking back and forth and trembling with sobs. She'd wiped her grubby little hands across her cheeks, the sand on her palms scraping her face and burning into her eyes, and waited until the tears dried, until daylight streamed through her weak shelter.

Now, she doesn't sleep at all, shadows lurking beneath her eyes. Instead she waits, and waits, and waits some more, adding another tally mark to the wall. She hates the scritch-scratch noise it makes, grating on her ears and into her skin, and she hates the wall filled with marks. Some near the bottom are faded, some near the top as well-- as high as she can reach, and there's still stretches of rock that she hasn't covered yet.

Waiting. That's all Rey's been doing, her entire life; waiting. For morning light, for the family she knows isn't coming, for a _chance_ , hidden in the bootprints in the sand she's walked over so many times already.

She waits for things she knows will not come-- hopes for impossible things, dreams in colors that don't exist. Dreams of _things_ that don't exist, sharp and beautiful, things she clutches at and breathes in and tries to pull with her when she wakes up in a cold sweat.

 

**ii.**   


It is alone that she faces everything. It is alone that she awakes bleeding, and wipes the tears from her eyes and sets her jaw and goes and asks for someone to fix it. It is alone that she looks down at herself, peeling away the folded layers of stolen clothing that barely fits her anymore, alone that she looks at the sharp edges of her bones, her ribs showing through her shirt. It is alone that she cries, clinging to all she has left of herself.

It is alone that Rey comes into herself.

It is alone that she chooses her name; alone that she pores over stolen delicacies, rarities even to those who have more than her. Books-- something of olden times, lost among the rubble-- tell her about the world, about all the things that she's never gotten a chance to learn herself.

Until this moment, Rey is simply a scavenger girl-- simply a “girl”, to others. She traces her fingers over the rumpled, old parchment, and looks to the sun-- because that is what it is called, now she knows.

“Rays,” she reads. “Rays of the sun.” They shine down on her, and she thinks of _names_ , assigned at birth most of the time but chosen by others. Usually taking after things, beautiful things-- or perhaps just something pretty, something that rolls off the tongue.

She thinks, and decides she would like to be more than this, more than a no-name girl, digging through scraps and things that had once been treasures, she's sure.

“Rey,” she says, eight years old (though she doesn't know this herself; age is an odd concept, something that blurs over the years she's been here) and lost to those who might've seen her as important once upon a time. “Rey,” she decides, and thus a scavenger girl with no name and dirt on her face, sharp bones and scrapes that burn when she touches them becomes Rey.

Her name is Rey--

And she is a _person_.

 

**iii.**

 

“I'm Rey.”

Something darts across the man's face-- he looks to his bloody, torn jacket for a moment, and he looks sad, almost, glancing down at it, before he says, “I'm Finn.” The word has a certain weight to it, and Rey's trembling with excitement still as she looks at him and smiles, sweat tracing across her forehead and BB-8 spinning around at her feet.

She remembers the warmth of his hand in hers and the word shaking around her, rattling, and he'd still said, _Are you okay_ when he was the one on the ground. How he'd gripped her fingers tight, squeezed her enough to bruise, and Rey'd jerked away, and--

She looks at him now, at the slow smile that he gives her, and thinks, _So this is what home feels like_.

 

**iv.**

 

A shout works its way through Rey's throat, the shadows of the forest around her sinking and Kylo Ren's dark eyes burning, dark and unrelenting, blood on Rey's fingers and so much blood around her, staining the white snow crimson--

And she thinks about the vision in Maz's, of an unknown voice murmuring, _Rey, these are your first steps_ , and she thinks about the weight of the lightsaber in her fingertips, how beautifully it glides across the sky-- how it cuts, how an immense feeling of belonging flows through her for the first time--

And Finn is lying limp on the ground, and--

Rey raises the lightsaber, and blue snaps against red, and she pushes forwards, and it feels so right to use this. She thinks of Han, of his murmured words and Kylo Ren's gaze sparking at him, softening and then burning so much, his eyes darted with red--

Like they are now, but there's the blue gleam appearing again, and--

Rey fights.

She is not alone now, but she is, and the quiet of the forest is punctuated by her yells of despair, feet tracing over the snow. And it crunches beneath her feet, reminding her of the sand on Jakku, though the situation is so different now-- now she is not a scavenger, but she is, still-- and Kylo Ren looks at her like he can't believe a _scavenger_ is doing this, a mere scavenger, an orphan--

But she is.

And she stabs, and parries like she's been doing this since childhood.

And she doesn't think about Jakku anymore, she doesn't think about the years she'd spent alone and wasting away. She doesn't think about how once she had been a scavenger without a name, she doesn't think about the faceless murmurs that come to haunt her in the night, about a meaty hand clasped around her shoulder and a starship lifting in the distance. She doesn't think about her past-- she just thinks about the now, and--

She _screams_ and _burns_ and _collapses_ , and she is a supernova, her lightsaber burning like a star against her eyes and she sees the reflexive surprise in Ren's face, sees his face harden again--

The land shatters beneath them, and Rey ducks back, back to Finn, and she gives a gasp of horror, at the pricklings of darkness within her. She knows that there is a dark and a light side to the Force, knows from Han and Leia talking about it, and knows that Ren belongs on the dark side. The gap that spreads, gaping and dark, between them-- it is the line that Rey needs not cross, the snap between the two sides of the Force.

It isn't just the distance that keeps Rey from charging back at Ren, spread out across the snow, now, his face toppled into it.

It is fear.

Fear she'll become like him, murdering and mowing down on those who dare to take a half-step in front of his way-- his own father, his own flesh and blood, he'd just killed him and the vision of his eyes going dark, the flaring lightsaber jutting out of Han's back--

She crumples and drops to the snow, and she swallows.

 

**v.**

 

Rey does not want to peel herself from Finn's side, even to find Luke Skywalker. She trails her fingers across his face, cupping his cheekbones softly, and leans down to press her lips to his forehead-- a brief, gentle touch that makes something in her chest warm. It is an unconscious echo of those lips against her own forehead, when she was but a child, swept up in something she didn't understand, shouting out _Don't leave me! Don't go!_

She imagines Finn saying this to her, and flinches, and leaves because she can't look at his still face any longer. She clicks the lightsaber-- Luke's lightsaber, Skywalker's lightsaber, she has to keep telling herself this to keep from thinking of it as her own (she cannot keep a thing, hasn't she learned this by now?)-- against her side and leaves, turns on her heel and just-- goes.

“Goodbye,” says Leia.

Her face had already been hard when Rey had first seen her, but now there's something new in her eyes, something sad and deep, there for years but coming to the surface only now. She'd taken one look at their faces when they'd come home and not come out of her room for hours, and now her exhaust shows in her eyes, beneath the sorrow that makes Rey's heart want to shatter.

And she grabs Rey's arm as Rey nods at her and turns, whirling her back around. “Rey,” she says, and Rey hears the Force in her voice, feels it in the air around her, and she is truly her brother's sister, isn't she. “Find him. Bring him home.”

Rey nods again.

She hears the unspoken words, the ones Leia cannot say: _Because Han couldn't do the same with Ben, because Han couldn't do the same even with himself_.

“I will,” Rey says.

She turns away, and hears Leia swallow beneath her-- the last person who'd walked away from her had been Han, Rey realizes. So she turns back, and she looks Leia in the eyes, and she smiles, and mouths _I'll come home too_ , and walks the rest of the way into the ship backwards.

Maybe she can't ease the weight to her own heart, but at least she can settle someone else's worries.

 

**vi.**

 

When Luke Skywalker turns to her, a metallic hand and a flesh one coming up to peel his hood back, to reveal a swish of silver hair, Rey looks away from his eyes. She can't meet them-- she can't, she knows, and so she only sees a flint of the blue eyes that take her in slowly, and she instead looks to his shoulders, and she raises his lightsaber. He opens his mouth, and she's not sure what she expects him to say, but--

It is not a simple, “Hello.”

He smiles, and Rey brings herself to look back to his face. She knows those eyes, she realizes-- they're the ones that have been ghosting through her dreams since she was a child, and the metal glint of his fingers catches the sun above as he holds out a hand to her.

But it's not her, not really--

And the lightsaber goes soaring out of Rey's hand, and she reaches for it before she can realize what she's doing. Luke's robes billow around him, and his smile widens, and he holds the lightsaber back out.

“The Force is strong in you,” he says.

Rey doesn't want to say, “I know,” but it feels like it is the only thing she can. She swallows it back, mind racing, and feels out around him, around the aura that fills the air, difficult to breathe or see through. “It is in you, too,” she says, and she adds, “Your sister, too,” as a half-hearted afterthought.

Luke looks her over, and the tension drifts out of his shoulders. “Rey,” he says, a low whisper, and Rey breaks at the sound, crumpling even as she pulls the lightsaber back into her palm. “I'm so sorry, Rey. I couldn't--” He shakes his head, and his hair falls over his face, years of regret bubbling to the surface. “I couldn't face my own mistakes-- but you were never a mistake,” he cuts in, to her rise of thoughts, thoughts that must be so loud and inexperienced. And if the Force is strong in her, why can't she calm herself, shove her emotions down? “You aren't practiced, but I promise I can teach you. I will teach you.”

“Why--” Rey pushes back her tears, gulping around the lump in her throat, blinking hard down on the wetness singeing her eyelashes. “Why did you leave me?”

“I,” Luke starts, and then he stops, falling to his feet. “Why don't you sit down, and I'll tell you all about it?”

 

**vii.**

 

Luke doesn't get straight to the point-- far from it, in fact. Instead he dances around the subject, despite how upset Rey is, and he looks uncomfortable, as upset as her but better at concealing it. But she can feel it; she can feel it twisting around him, and she can see it, in his face and the tremble of his shoulders when he starts in on another story that avoids the topic.

“Luke,” she interrupts finally. He lifts his gaze at her, and he scrapes his fingers through his beard, a sigh falling from his lips. “Luke, just tell me-- what happened to my mother? Why did you two leave me?”

Luke blinks at her, mouthing the word _mother_ to himself before he gives a small laugh. “Rey, there wasn't a mother,” he says. Her brow furrows-- that was always in the books, wasn't it, that only a man and woman could have a child because of _anatomy_ , detailed on page three-oh-four? “I mean-- I don't know what your sex ed was like, but...” He looks her over, his hands rubbing idle patterns in the crook of his own elbow, and his gaze flashes with understanding. “Ah. Yes. See, let's just say the society you'd have grown up in-- or gotten a _book_ from-- doesn't normalize having different anatomy than is usually accepted.”

“So are you a girl, really?” Rey-- Rey doesn't understand, and it's making her upset.

“No,” Luke says, that discomfort flickering in his face again. “People know better about these things now-- datapads have better things on it.” He clears his throat; rubs his hands together. “I'm trans. Basically, everyone kept telling me I was a girl when I was a kid and I knew something was wrong about it.” He shrugs. “I wasn't born a girl, I'm not a girl, I've _never_ been a girl no matter what those damn books say.”

“So... I had another father?”

“Yes,” Luke answers, and his voice breaks. “I-- maybe we should change the subject. You wish to become a Jedi Knight, right?” She nods, overeager and attention snapping back to what she'd come here for in the first place. Not to find her missing family-- not even to find Leia's, though that had been part of it-- but to train, really. “Yes. I promise I'll teach you, but this planet doesn't offer much breathing room.”

“Let's go back, then,” Rey says, jolting to her feet. Luke frowns at her. “Leia misses you,” she blurts, and she doesn't know why, but Luke's lips curve into a half-smile.

“Let's go back,” Luke agrees.

 

**viii.**

 

The girl's skin burns and she aches and trembles, and she stares helplessly into the distance, at the blue sky and a voice growling, “Quiet, girl!” and she doesn't know what to do and-- she thinks she was once happy, with blue eyes looking her over, a joyous laugh falling from her lips but now all that is coming is “Don't go! Don't leave me!”

They're already gone, and Rey (though she is not Rey yet, and she doesn't know if she ever will be, and she thinks she might've had another name but she can't remember being anything other than this) breaks and--

 

**ix.**

 

The ride back is all sorts of awkward-- Rey, who has not had a family since she was much younger and Luke, who has not had a daughter for years and has had little contact with what other family he has-- but Rey manages it. She lets Luke be the pilot, because her eyelids are starting to fall with every second and her legs hurt and this, oh, this is worse than the deserts where she'd spent her childhood--

She doesn't even know she's fallen asleep, in a flash of dreams about Jakku and burning and a lightsaber before her and those eyes zooming out to show a hard face forming words she can't hear, before she awakens. Luke hovers above her, familiar blue eyes worried, peeling his fingers away from her shoulder and stepping back when she jerks and shouts at the touch.

Rey settles back, breathing heavy, when she sees what's caused it. She wipes her fingers across her face, bringing away droplets of sweat though there's a sharp chill running through. “I'm sorry,” she says, and looks to the small bruise forming on Luke's cheek. “Did I--”

“Rey,” Luke says, and only that. He doesn't even seem to notice the blood on his cheekbones, the swing she'd taken and she hears his thoughts _is she okay is she okay I shouldn't have woken her I don't know how to have a daughter_ \--

“I'm fine,” she says, and breathes out. “I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm--”

But she's never _been_ fine, doesn't even really know if she could, and--

“Rey,” Luke says again. He sits back and gets as far away from her and Rey hears him say _oh I know what's happening_ but his lips don't move, and she shakes and wonders _is this what the Force is supposed to feel like?_ “Breathe. Breathe with me--” And he holds up one hand and she doesn't know what he's doing-- “One,” he says, and presses a finger up with it. Everything seems to be going in a blur and-- “Two,” says Luke.

Rey breathes.

She tries to--

She tries, and Luke says, “Three,” and she _does_ , gulps in air like it's twenty portions after she's gone without food for three days in a row--

And suddenly, she can see again, and collapses against the ragged co-pilot seat. “What,” she says, and licks her lips and keeps breathing, harsh and quicker than Luke had instructed but she'd never thought she'd be this starving to simply breathe before, “was that?”

“An anxiety attack,” Luke tells her, starting to move in closer again. “Maybe a panic attack-- you were having a bad dream, I think.” He presses a hand onto her shoulder, cautious and warning, and Rey-- Rey's first instinct is to pull away because touch can only bring hurt, hands harsh against her but she doesn't think he'd do that to her. It takes up until this moment for her to realize the ship isn't swaying, and she falters, looking around. “I have anxiety, so--” And Luke stops, looks at her when he realizes she isn't listening. “Oh. We're back on D'Qar; Chewie and R2”-- and his face lights a bit with the names-- “are already off.”

“We should go, then,” Rey says, and lifts herself up to her feet, gripping to Luke's arm when her legs buckle beneath her. “I'm fine,” she says, hard and tight, when he looks at her, pitying and sympathetic, and the look makes Rey's skin crawl. “Let's go.”

 

**x.**

 

The droid she'd saved is small and round and bright against the warm tones of Jakku, and the sun is shining so damn brightly and Rey turns to go-- and he pleads with her, beeps out something that makes her shake her head and keep moving. And then, its next words stop her-- he's alone, he's scared-- he has no one else, and maybe Rey should not be this emotional over a droid saying this--

But she says, “Come on,” with her tone tinged with regret. She is going to feel more like that later, she's sure, but--

She knows how the thing feels, despite it all.

 

**xi.**

 

“You brought him home,” Leia says, and Rey nods, feeling uncomfortable under the intensity of her stare. And Leia's gaze breaks and she's rushing towards Rey and hugging her and Rey-- Rey doesn't know what to do so she looks over Leia's shoulder at Luke, who looks just as uncomfortable as her, and Leia pulls back and frowns. “What? You're looking at me strange.”

“I did bring him home,” says Rey, and she's not sure how to convey that she'd brought back Leia's family but also hers, and she _has family_ and that's-- strange. She glances back at Luke, who's shaking his head, and to Leia, who still stares at her. “And it's-- nothing. I just am... surprised.” She shrugs, hoping this is good enough.

(No one ever seemed to think that-- not before she met Finn at least and oh that makes her heart skip.)

“Is Finn okay? Is he still--”

“He'll be awake in a few weeks,” says Leia. Her gaze turns understanding, and she pats Rey on the shoulder. “You can go see him-- that pilot, Poe Dameron, might be in with him, so you could get to know him.”

Oh. Rey had met Poe, for a fleeting second, and she remembers clutching to shoulders-- warm scent in her ear-- oil-slick fingers gripping her back-- and a murmured, “I'm Poe,” and a “I'm Rey,” from her.

She nods, and brushes past Leia and Luke (Luke who is looking at her like a stranger, and a bit thankfully too, like he's glad Rey hadn't said anything about her heritage yet).

 

**xii.**

 

Poe is in the medbay in a chair beside Finn's bed, and he jerks to his feet when he sees Rey in the doorway, awkward and a little nervous about talking to someone closer to her age. Who isn't related to her, at the very least.

“Hey,” Poe bursts, and he looks sweaty and as nervous as her, rubbing his hands through his hair. He scratches the side of his greasy face, fidgeting there for a long moment before he sighs and drops back down into the chair, tapping another beside him. Finn lays still and quiet in the bed still, but there's a steadier beat to his breaths than the last time Rey had seen him. “The medbots, and the nurses, they say that he'll be up and walking in-- well, he'll be awake in a few weeks, but not fully functional.” He cuts off with a small noise, somewhere deep in his throat. “I thought you'd be off for longer with”-- and his next words are reverent, and it is odd, because to Rey Luke seems unassuming about being a Master Jedi-- “Master Skywalker longer.”

“He wanted to come back,” Rey says, which is not exactly a lie. She settles into the other chair, and her fingers are shaking when she reaches out, unable to touch Finn, not while he's like this. “The jacket-- that's yours, right?”

Poe's lips curve in a small smile, and his dark eyes sparkle. “Yes. He-- saved me, and I bled all over that damn thing, probably, and it smelled terrible, but he still wore it.”

He looks over Finn, a little sad and a little hopeful, and Rey remembers herself hovering over Finn, pecking him on the forehead before she left. She wasn't used to leaving; she was always the one left behind, but it seemed inevitable then.

“And he was wearing it when--” Poe's shoulders begin to tremble, and Rey reaches for him, thinking of Luke in the cockpit of the ship. Poe seems to appreciate the touch, giving her a look out of the corners of his eyes, and for once Rey doesn't want to pull her fingers away-- but that could be the fact that she's the one touching. She's not the one being touched, and it's refreshing, a change in pace. “Knowing him, he'll probably wake up and say _sorry I ruined your jacket_ while he's been sliced in the back by Kylo kriffing Ren.”

“He's a good person,” is all Rey can think to say, and Poe looks at her like he's saying _I know that already_.

 

**xiii.**

 

Finn wakes up.

Finn wakes up, and with it, Rey finds herself darting down the hallway as soon as Leia tells her, paying no attention to the _hey, be careful, he's still fragile_ \-- and Leia doesn't know of their relation still, Luke not telling her, and Rey doesn't want to if he hasn't. There's a reason, she knows, but she cares nothing of this while she's sprinting down hallways and spinning around corners and Poe shouts out to her and she pulls him with her--

And Finn is sitting up in his bed, smiling and laughing at whatever the medbot's saying to him and his hands are spread across his lap--

And Rey swears, she's seen the suns of Jakku, looked right into their white-hot light--

But she's never seen anything brighter than Finn's smile when he sees them, as they both shout his name and he yells theirs back: “Poe! Rey!”

He tries to rise, to jump up and, presumably, hug them, but the medbot is pushing him back down with an exasperated, “Sir, your spinal cord has been torn you still need time to heal, you can't stand--”

“You can give me a hug as soon as you're feeling up to it, buddy,” Poe assures him, and Rey nods in agreement. Poe edges towards him, and nods to the medbot, who, with an irate tut, leaves the room; he pats Finn on the shoulder and smiles, just as bright and beautiful as Finn's. “But for now, this will do.”

Finn grins at him and looks over his shoulder to Rey, who feels something hot and wet burn her eyes and reaches to shove them away, sniffling. “Are you a Jedi yet?”

“You've only been out two months,” Rey complains, but she laughs and drops her hands and doesn't even try to swallow back the tears. Before now she would've been embarrassed-- at someone, much less two people she wasn't too close to, seeing her like this, broken and weak. “No, but Luke's”-- and as always the word weighs the same as a whole crate of portions in her throat-- “here, and he's started training me.”

“Do you think I could meet him?” asks Finn, eyes going big, and Rey and Poe both laugh-- Poe's is a little stuck, now, and Rey catches him ducking his head, wiping his own eyes.

“Of course,” says Rey, having no doubt about it. “He'd be happy to meet you. Me and Poe have talked about you enough for him to want to, at least--” And she shakes her head and laughs and she's never had a home to speak of, but nothing has ever felt like this.

 

**xiv.**

 

“There's no place like home,” says Luke, and Rey gives him a surprised look, swallowing what food she's gotten on her fork. The food here, on D'Qar, is better than any portions she's ever had-- and she'd been shy about eating too much at first, not wanting to displease anyone, but Poe'd settled down beside her with three overflowing plates and assured her it was fine to eat as much as she could. “This is your home, Rey--” And he taps his chest, leaning forwards and smiling at her. “Home is where the heart is.”

“You should tell Leia that I'm your daughter,” is what Rey says, because she hates moments where he spills philosophies at her and he'd scoffed at her for this before. Now, he clears his throat and says nothing else, turning back to his food.

“I have, already,” he says finally, when most of the other rebels are back in their quarters and Leia is, too. Luke looks across the table at her, and for once she sees his age-- sees all the things he has, and not through some simple mind trick, not through the stories he tells about Ben Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and Master Yoda and, sometimes, a girl, too, Padme Amidala. “She-- she knows who your other father is, and I didn't expect her to be okay with it, but...” He shakes his head, smiling, and Rey sees all the love he has for his sister, too. “She is.”

“So do I get to find out?” Rey, beyond this, is wondering why Leia hasn't looked at her differently-- but maybe she has, with a little more sadness and affection than before.

“Maybe you already know,” says Luke, cryptic as ever, and he wipes his mouth and stands. “Goodnight, Rey.”

“Goodnight, Luke,” she says.

 

**xv.**

 

The first day into her training, Rey calls Luke “Master” because that's what she's supposed to do, isn't it-- and he drops his lightsaber, jerking his head from side to side.

“See,” he says, “the reason I never took on any padawans before was because of that. _Master_.” He twists it in his mouth, spits it out like blood, or anything else foul and disgusting in his jaw. Like sand, maybe. (Rey's swallowed enough of that to know what it tastes like.) “You might be my padawan, Rey, but you should never feel like you have to call me _Master_ or anything else fancy like that.” _What about Dad_ , she almost says, and has to bite it back, but she thinks it slips from her mind into his, and his eyes go stormy and distant. “So it's just Luke, okay?”

“Okay,” Rey says, and then, thinking he's waiting for something, “Luke.”

He nods, and smiles like it's been punched out of him, and goes back to what he's saying about the lightsaber and how to grip it and how to twist and parry.

 

**xvi.**

 

Poe swings his legs off the rooftop, and his eyes glimmer with the stars above, and Finn is holding his hand and Rey is holding Finn's. They've never established what-- this is, if it is anything, or if they're just friends (and Rey has never had a friend before, and neither has Finn, but here they are, and this is what family and friends are and Rey likes having a family, likes having friends). Rey's fine with this but sometimes she awakes and she's dreamt of kissing Finn, of him kissing Poe--

And she isn't listening to whatever Poe is saying about the names of the stars, and she wonders how so many little things can have names, and more so how Poe can remember them all. She doesn't think Finn is, either, simply happy to hear Poe's voice--

And then, cutting him off mid-sentence, Finn draws Poe's hand to his mouth and kisses him there, between his knuckles, and Poe sputters and goes pink. Rey giggles at him but soon Finn's doing the same to her, and she goes as hot as Poe, and they sit up there in silence for hours longer, sneaking kisses underneath the blue moonlight, and--

Rey, for once, thinks she has a home.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblrr](http://npdsolo.tumblr.com)


End file.
